


Bad Wolf

by AdelaideNoble



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who 2005
Genre: Adventure, Bad Wolf, F/M, Gen, Novelisations, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 10:33:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5001373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdelaideNoble/pseuds/AdelaideNoble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nineteen-year-old Rose Tyler's life is forever altered after an encounter with the Nestene Consciousness at her workplace. Now she travels in time and space, saves planets and just maybe begins to fall in love with an alien. But all isn't peachy cream and saving planets. The words "bad  wolf" are stalking Rose and The Doctor across the universe, and neither she or her Time Lord companion can even start to comprehend what they mean. *series 1 novelisations*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Wolf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IeshaFox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IeshaFox/gifts).



> So IeshaFox and I had a competition: who could write the better novelisation of the first episode of New Doctor Who. I don't know who won and probably never will, because we got too lazy to judge and forgot about it. But here you are. Sorry for the reeeeeallly long chapter.

Earth was a tiny planet, the Doctor couldn't help reflecting as he watched it floating there, orbiting its sun. It was lovely, though, and blue. He liked blue. Everyone liked blue, didn't they? In his opinion, you were mad if you didn't.

He could see half that moon now, and couldn't help but also reflect on the people of that little blue world. They'd made up stories about that moon for years and years, but they were finally moving past that, finally poking their noses out into the universe, like curious puppies poking their heads out of their kennels.

 

Beep! Beep! Beep!

She wanted to close her eyes, to roll over and go right back to sleep. Yeah, that'd be nice, just have a good old lie-in. No stupid alarms to wake her up and maybe around noon, Mum would come in and bring her a cup of tea, so she could wake herself up properly.

But the digital clock was flashing seven-thirty, and since she'd nearly been late the past two days, Rose Tyler decided to get up now. So she sprang out of bed like she was going somewhere exciting, on a trip maybe, and not off to a boring day at a job she didn't care about.

She got dressed, brushed her long blonde hair and cleaned her teeth all in a rushed blur. She considered throwing on a little makeup, in case she decided to meet Mickey, her boyfriend, for lunch. It wouldn't hurt, but the clock said seven-fifty and the shop opened at eight-fifteen.

In the living room, her mother, Jackie was lounging on the settee, flipping through channels on the telivision.

"Bye." Rose called out cheerfully, before giving her mum a quick kiss on the cheek as she passed and then grabbing her keys off the hall table.

"See you later." Her mother called after her, turning her attention to the telephone, probably to make plans for the morning with one of her friends.

Rose ran down the stairs. The time on her mobile was seven fifty-five when Rose got to the bus stop, and although the traffic of London was speeding past, she didn't see the bus. She hoped it wasn't coming late.

It did, as she figured it would, and it was as she stood on the platform of the double-decker bus that Rose realized she hadn't eaten a thing, or even had a cup of tea that morning.

At eight-o-one Mickey called. "Meet me for lunch, yeah?" She asked, speaking quickly into her mobile, facing away from the other passengers on the bus.

"Yeah. 'Course. Trafalgar Square?"

"Yeah. Usual time?"

"Yeah. See you then." And with that, he ended the call.

Eight-ten, the clock on her mobile said as she hopped off the bus and entered Henrick's Department Store.

"You'll be working in ladies' today, Rose." Her supervisor said bossily, pointing her in the direction of the specified department, as though she thought Rose had forgotten where it was, which she hadn't.

So she breezed through the morning, shelving this, selling that and generally making sure everyone found what they wanted and everything was in its place. She couldn't, however, keep the expression of slight boredom from ghosting across her face from time to time. Rose liked to think that the customers understood, though. It was, after all, a rather boring occupation, and probably not the way any of them would want to spend their endless days.

Lunch came around, sooner than Rose expected it to, and she found herself sitting by a fountain with Mickey in Trafalgar Square.

"You look bored." Mickey observed.

Rose didn't say anything, just continued to watch the crowds and the traffic rather moodily, which wasn't usual for her.

Mickey, never one to see her anything but smiling, began to regale her with a tale of something stupid one of his mates had done last Saturday. When that didn't work, he began to rattle off football scores, telling her all about how his favorite team was winning. Finally, as though he could think of nothing more creative to do that might make her smile, he did a silly little dance for her, which prompted her to laugh.

At the end of the pleasant-enough lunch break, they kissed, and went off their separate ways.

The afternoon breezed by in the same way as the morning.

Finally, at five twenty-five, the speaker system came to life, saying coolly, "This is a customer announcement. The store will be closing in five minutes. Thank you."

Rose smiled inwardly as she headed to the doors with two other girls.

She was nearly through when the security guard stopped her with a quick and rather angry "Oi!" He shook a clear ZipLock bag in her face, full of money. She took it, and ran off to a lift as he closed the shop doors.

Rose fiddled with the bag rather impatiently as she rode the lift down to the basement. Why did she have to be the one to do this? Why not one of the other girls? Why not the supervisor or the guard himself?

She got out and looked around. She didn't like the basement, and she always had the rediculous and childish urge to look over her shoulders for monsters when she came down here.

"Wilson?" She shouted into the gloom. "Wilson, I've got the lottery money. Wilson."

She rapped at his office door impatiently. There was always the chance he'd gone home... "Are you there?" She asked the closed door.

She tried the handle, but it was locked. Typical. "Look, I can't hang around 'cause they're closing the shop." She addressed the closed door, fiddling with the bag in her hand.

One last shout for him, and if he wasn't there... She didn't know what she'd do, but she wasn't hanging around all day. "Wilson!" She shouted.

"Come on." She muttered to herself, and was about to finish the rant, when she heard the crashing noise and turned toward it.

The basement was full of junk, lots of places for someone to hide, and lots of reasons for someone to consider it. Was that shadow moving, the one just out of the corner of her eye? Was that the sound of muffled whispers just behind that pile of stuff?

"Hello?" She asked, walking around the space. "Hello, Wilson. It's Rose... Hello... W-wilson?"

The source of the whisperings seemed to be somewhere behind a set of double doors. What was Wilson doing? Throwing a party in a storeroom? He really shouldn't be mucking about like this down here, anyway.

Tentatively, Rose pushed the doors open. Light from the corridor penetrated the dark space, and, emboldened by it, Rose stepped inside, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Something wasn't right. And where was Wilson?

She reached a hand up to where she figured the light switch was, and finding it, flicked it. The room before her was a storage gallery of sorts, mannequins of all sizes lining it, in states of disarray. She began to walk down the gallery, through the mannequins, which stood like gigantic toy soldiers.

"Wilson?" She shouted, her voice echoing rather eerily around the space, through the still and silent ranks of dolls and the rails of clothes that stood with them. "Wilson!"

Spotting another doorway at the end of this chamber of dummies, Rose sped up. Wilson was through there, he had to be! As she approached the door at the far end of the room, the first door, the one through which she'd come, slammed shut behind her, the sound startling her.

Her heart in her throat, Rose ran back toward the first door. Blood was pumping through her veins and she thought maybe she was going to be sick or faint or both. She tugged at the handle. Never mind Wilson or the bag of money! She had to get out of here!

"Are you kidding me?" She muttered, jerking at the door handle. But the door was locked. Of course it was locked. It was always locked in this kind of situation, and Rose just wanted to panic.

She couldn't. She had to get out of here. She stood for a moment, the silence calming as she tried to concentrate on slowing her heart rate and breathing, in the way she used to before a gymnastics competition when she was a little kid and backflimping for a crowd was the scariest thing in life.

The silence was broken by a god-awful squeaking noise, almost as if one of the dolls were animated, testing a newly movable arm, swinging it back and forth, back and forth.

She turned around, rather angry. Her fear was showing now, plastered all over her face.

"Is that someone mucking about?" She shouted to the room at large. SHE began to walk forward, hesitantly, back the way she'd come. "Who is it?"

As she passed it, one of the mannequins in the shadows turned its expressionless plastic face toward her, watching her. Whirling round, Rose was astonished and terrified to see the plastic humanish form moving toward her, stiffly but steadily, out of the shadows.

"You got me, very funny." She said, uncertainly, as two more dummies shambled towards her. "Right, I've got the joke." She continued, backing away, "Whos idea was this? Is it Derek's? Is it? Derek, is this you?"

More and more of the previously lifeless shop dummies came at her, steadily caging her in. Her heart was drumming out an irregular stoccatto in her chest, her mind was racing at a thousand irrational kilometers per hour...

And then she tripped, forcing her to back up against a wall just to stay on her feet. She was done for, she had to be... Her plastic assailants or assassins, she wasn't sure what they'd turn out to be, held up an arm apiece, as if waiting for the order to strike. She shrank back into the concrete wall, wishing she could disappear into it, let it swallow her up.

A real hand took her arm in a vice-like grip. Rose could feel the warmth of the skin, the realness of it pressed against her bare flesh. "Run." A male voice barked, close to her ear.

They both ran. The man kept a firm hold of Rose, pulling her through doors and down corridors. The mannequins were right on their heels. Any moment now, Rose expected them to eat her, to feel the cold plastic of their touch as they grabbed her by the back of the neck. There was a lift ahead, the last hope and Rose prayed to whatever was up there that they'd make it, because if they didn't... Well, Rose didn't know what would happen. They sped up as they approached, and the mystery man pressed the button, shoving Rose in before hurrying in himself.

He was about forty, with dark hair cropped short. He wore jeans and a leather jacket. Ordinary, really. It was so ordinary, standing here in a lift... If, of course she didn't look out the doors.

As the lift doors began to close, a dummy reached in, probably trying to grab them. It never got the chance. The mystery man grabbed its wrist and yanked. With a clearly audible pop, the arm came clean off in the man's hand.

"You pulled his arm off." Rose stated, shocked. This whole ordeal was shocking, but as she stood here, stood still in the lift, she began to rationalize it out. These weren't dummies, these were people dressed up, being idiots. And this strange man had pulled one of their arms off! That had to be illegal.

"Yep." He answered, nonchalontly. "Plastic." He then stated.

"Very clever, nice trick. Who were they, then? Students? Is this a student thing or what?"

"Why would they be students?"

Rose thought for a second. "I dunno."

"Well, you said it. Why students?" He pressed.

Rose racked her brain. "'Cause, to get that many people dressed up and being silly, they got to be students." She explained, smugly. She was calmer now, she could think now.

"That makes sense. Well done." He complimented, but his tone was almost mocking, and Rose couldn't really tell if he meant it.

"Thanks." She replied anyway.

"They're not students." He deadpanned.

"Whoever they are, when Wilson finds them, he's going to call the police." She remarked, matter-of-factly.

"Who's Wilson?" The man asked, almost smugly, as though he already knew.

"Chief electrician."

"Wilson's dead." He said, as though it were nothing, as though a man dying was something that happened every day, which it was but... Not here. Not in Rose's world. But Rose didn't let her inner hysteria show through. She couldn't. There wasn't time.

"That's not funny. That's sick." She couldn't help saying, although she bit her tongue and tried not to.

"Hold on. Mind your eyes." He said, changing the subject abruptly as they arrived at a set of doors.

"I've had enough of this now." Rose decided, as the man took out a long silver device and pointed it at the door. He pressed a button on the side, causing it to emit a blue light at its tip and a metallic whirring noise.

"Who are you, then?" Rose asked, indignantly, following the man as he went along, though she wasn't happy about it. "Who's that lot down there? I said, who are they?" She shouted after him. He was getting away from her...

"They were made of plastic, living plastic creatures, and they're being controlled by a relay device on the roof, which would be a great big problem if I didn't have this." He held up a softly beeping box, before continuing: "So. I'm going to go upstairs, and blow it up. And I might well die in the process, but don't worry about me. No. You go on. Go on. Go on and have your lovely beans on toast." They stood at the back doors now, and Rose was catching her breath.

"Don't tell anyone about this, you'll get them killed." He added as Rose stepped through the metal doors, closing them behind her. And she let herself relax for a moment, that had to be the end of this.

And then he opened the doors to add: "I'm the Doctor, by the way. What's your name?"

"Rose." She answered, confidently. Her name was something she knew, something that wasn't changing.

"Nice to meet you, Rose. Now run for your life." And with that, he closed the door a final time, slamming it for good measure.

She was bemused. She looked around, gauging where she was, getting her bearings. Rose realized, only after she'd started running, that she was still holding the plastic arm that the Doctor had thrown at her, during his angry rant. At which point, she couldn't have said. Maybe she should drop it... But she didn't.

She stopped a moment to catch her breath. There was a stitch in her side. She wasn't exactly out-of-shape, but it'd been a while since she'd done running like this. The traffic was still going by, a sight that was half-reassurring and half-annoying. Apparently, there were "living plastic creatures" in the basement of a shop and cars and cabs could still whiz along the streets.

In a few clumsy steps, she was crossing the street, right in front of a black cab, a fact she only noticed at the peeved shouting of the driver. With a gasp of left-over fear, she rushed to the other side. There, she stopped, and looked back at the department store. Should she go back? See if the Doctor was okay?

Suddenly, the department store wasn't there, though. In an explosion of white fire and broken glass, the roof shattered outward, along with the upper story windows. And Rose knew: there was no way that the Doctor was all right. A second man was dead today in Rose's world. So she ran, but at least now she wasn't the only one.

 

"The whole of Central London has been closed off." A newsreader was saying, his voice filling Rose's ears, but not her mind.

"I know! It's on the telly! It's everywhere!" Rose's mother was saying into the telephone. "She's lucky to be alive. Honestly, it's aged her. Skin like an old Bible. Walking in now, you'd think I was her daughter..." Jackie continued her conversation with someone, but Rose turned her attention elsewhere as Mickey burst in.

"I've been phoning your mobile! You could've been dead. It's on the news and everything! I can't believe it. The shop went up." He said, all in a rush.

"I'm all right... I'm fine." She comforted him, but even to her own ears it sounded forced. "Don't make a fuss."

"Well what happened?" He asked, sitting beside her on the sofa.

"I don't know."

"What was it though? What caused it?"

"I wasn't in the shop! I was outside. I didn't see anything...

She broke off as her mother turned back to her, holding out the phone. "It's Debbie on the end." She explained, "She knows a man on the mirror, five-hundred quid for an interview."

"Oh, that's brilliant. Give it here." Rose pretended to enthuse, taking the telephone from her mother. She ended the call without saying a word to Debbie.

"Well, you've gotta find some way of making money. Your job's kaput, and I'm not bailing you out." And then the phone rang again, and Rose's mother was off on another thread of conversation, saying, "Bev! She's alive! ... I've told you! Sue for compensation. She was within seconds of death."

Rose rolled her eyes at her mother's dramatics, and took a sip of her tea.

"What you drinkin? Tea? Nah, nah. That's no good. You're in shock, you need something stronger."

"I'm all right..." She assured,, but Mickey cut in.

"Nah come on. You deserve a proper drink. We're going down to the pub. You and me. My treat. How about it?"

"Is there a match on?" She asked, grinning at Mickey. He only ever got this vehement about having a drink when there was, and a near-death experience of hers wasn't going to change that.

"No, no!" He assured, sounding hurt. "Just thinking about you, babe."

"Match on, ain't there?" Rose asked, knowingly. He really was so predictable sometimes.

"Well that's not the point, but we could catch the last five minutes."

"No. Go on then. I'm fine, really. Go. And get rid of that."

She pointed to the plastic arm, which she'd laid on a table. Mickey looked at it in slight disgust for a moment, before picking it up.

Rose motioned him to her, to kiss her. She had to have some normalcy, and a nice Mickey-kiss should be just what did it for her.

He did so, before waving the arm at her and saying in a falsetto voice, "Bye-bye."

"Bye." She replied, mimicking him with a smile.

As he left, he pretended dramatically that the arm was strangling him, making her smile. It was that simple. Someone had been manipulating those mannequins, just like Mickey was manipulating the arm. Only it wasn't... And in the corner of her mind, Rose knew that.

Her mother was finally off the phone, so the only sound that filled the house was the reassuring backround noise of the BBC newsreader, yammering away for no one to listen to. At least, Rose wasn't listening. No, her mind was still far away, with the hope that maybe somehow the Doctor had jumped out a window and that two men hadn't died today.

 

The evening was filled with the sounds of shouting, dogs barking, cars driving along. Normal sounds at the Powell Estate. Most days, those noises would have calmed Mickey, but not tonight. Something had scared Rose, and that made him angry, mostly at himself because he didn't know how to make it better. It would take a bit more than the sounds of a couple having a row and a dog complaining at something or other to make it better this night.

He went along the street a ways to a plastic bin and tossed the arm in. It rattled loudly as it hit the plastic bottom.

Someone must have just emptied it, Mickey thought. He didn't think about it anymore as he wandered into the pub, just in time to find out who won the match.

 

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Seven-thirty read out across the alarm's display, and sleepily, Rose sat up to turn it off. Time for another boring day of work...

"There's no sense in getting up, sweetheart. You've got no job to go to." Rose's mum shouted from the living room.

So she didn't. Rose slept until eight, before getting out of bed and sitting down at the dining table with a cup of tea.

"There's Finch's. You could try them. They've always got jobs." Her mother offered.

"Oh great." Rose said glumly, looking into her teacup. "The butcher's."

"Well, it might do you good. That shop was giving you airs and graces. And I'm not joking about compensation. You've had genuine shock and trauma." Her voice rose as the rant went on. She continued, "Ariana got two-thousand quid off the council just 'cause the old man behind the desk said she looked Greek. I know she is Greek, but that's not the point. It's a valid claim." Rose's mother moved into the other room.

She'd only been half-listening to her mother. Rose looked around. A skittering noise had caught her attention, and she thought she knew from where it had come.

She looked to the front door, angry. "Mum," She started, "you're such a liar! I told you to nail that caq-flap down. We're going to get strays."

"I did it weeks back!" Rose's mum shouted back.

"No, you thought about it." Rose countered.

Something tapped at the cat-flap, and Rose knelt down to have a closer look. She could have sworn she'd heard something... Something familiar. Gingerlyerly, she pushed the flap open. She gasped. On the other side was the Doctor, looking in on her. She recoiled slightly.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, surprised when Rose opened the door.

"I live here." She replied coolly.

"Well what do you do that for?"

"Because I do! And I'm only home because someone blew up my job." She was indignantly glaring at him.

He pointed his silver device at her, and activated it, causing it to whir. "That's got the wrong signal." He said, rather annoyed. "You're not plastic, are you? No, bone head. Bye, then."

"You," She said, ushering him in angrily, "inside. Right now."

"Who is it?" Her mother called from the other room.

"It's about last night." Rose lied smoothly, stepping into her mother's bedroom, the Doctor just behind her, "He's part of the inquiry. Give us ten minutes."

"She deserves compensation." Her mother said angrily, turning from her makeup to the Doctor.

"Oh! We're talking millions." He replied.

"Um..." Rose's mother cleared her throat, looking down at herself. "I'm in my dressing gown."

"Yes, you are." The Doctor replied, as though it were nothing.

"There's a strange man in my bedroom."

"Yes, there is." He agreed seriously.

"Well anything could happen."

"No." The Doctor whispered harshly.

Her mother pulled a face as they left. Rose wanted to smile. Leave it to her mum, when a strange man comes to the house to see it that way.

"Don't mind the mess." Rose said apologetically as they entered the kitchen. She was suddenly very conscious of the small pile of dirty dishes in the sink. "Do you want a coffee?"

"Might as well, thanks. Just milk." He replied easily.

"We should go to the police. Seriously." She said, beginning to make his drink. "Both of us."

That won't last." She heard the Doctor say from the living room. "He's gay and she's an alien."

"I'm not blaming you," She went on, "Even if it was some sort of joke that went wrong."

"Sad ending." She heard him comment. She was a little annoyed now. He was deliberately ignoring her, wasn't he?

"It said on the news they found a body." She said loudly. That would get his attention. Did he not realize that because of his "joke went wrong" a man was dead? "I s'pose it was going to happen... I didn't really know him, but all the same, he was nice. He was a nice bloke... Anyway, if we are going to go to the police, I want to know what I'm saying. I want you to explain everything." She finished.

"Maybe not." She heard him mutter. "What's that, then?" He asked, standing.

Rose heard it too. It was a skittering sound, as though tiny claws were pattering across the tiles of the floor.

"You got a cat?" He asked her.

"No." She answered, pouring the coffee, "We did have, but we just get strays in off the estate."

He heard a choking sound from behind her, and so turned around. He seemed to be playing with that stupid arm, making it strangle him. He pretended to fight desperately against it...

"I told Mickey to chuck that out... But all the same, give a man a plastic hand..." She muttered.

"Anyway," She continued at a normal volume, "I don't even know your name. Doctor... What was it?"

He wrenched the arm from his throat, and it hovered in the air a moment. Then, it launched itself at Rose. She felt fear, the same fear that gripped her in the shop, grip her then as it attached itself to her face.

She grappled with it as it clawed at her. The Doctor moved over to help. They fell backwards onto the coffee table, and it gave under them.

The Doctor wrestled something out of his jacket, the silver device. He pointed it at the plastic arm and activated it. Rose squinted in the bright blue light eminating from its tip.

"It's all right, I've stopped it." He said softly. "There. 'Armless." He tossed it at her.

"Do you think?" Rose asked, glaring, before whacking him with it.

"Ow!" He exclaimed.

"Hold on a minute. You can't just go swanning off!" She shouted, running after him down the stairwell a few minutes later.

"Yes I can, here I am. This is me, swanning off. See ya!" He replied, a few stairs ahead of her.

"That arm tried to kill me!" Rose shouted angrily.

"Ten out of ten for observation." He muttered coldly.

"Well, you can't just walk away! That's not fair!" She shouted. Who'd he think he was, anyway? An arm, a plastic arm attached to nothing had attached itself to her face and tried to suffocate her. And when that didn't work, it had tried strangulation, everything a plastic arm could do to stop her from breathing!

And here this man was, this Doctor, running down the stairs and leaving her with more questions than she wanted to deal with and less answers than she needed. What if it came back? Where did it come from? Why her?

"You've got to tell me what's going on." She said, trying to keep calm.

"No I don't!" He replied in slight annoyance. They'd reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out onto the street. "All right then." She conceded hotly, glaring daggers at this man. "I'll go to the police. I'll tell everyone, and you said if I did that, I'd get people killed. So. Your choice. Tell me, or I'll start talking." She delivered the speech with all the bravado she had.

"Was that supposed to sound tough?" He asked with disdain.

"Sort of." She admitted, with less confidence.

"Doesn't work."

"Who are you?" She asked again.

"Told you, the Doctor."

"Yeah, but, doctor what?"

"Just the Doctor."

"Just the Doctor."

"Hello!"

Rose laughed. She couldn't help it. He was oddly charming, this Doctor. "Was that supposed to sound impressive?" She asked then.

"Sort of." It was his turn to lose his bravado.

"Come on then!" Rose said impatiently, "You can tell me. I've seen enough. Are you the police?"

"No." He said, as though it were the most rediculous proposal he'd ever heard, "I was just passing through... I'm a long way from home."

"But what have I done wrong? How come those plastic things keep coming after me?" Rose asked. She'd got him talking, and she wanted to keep him that way.

"Oh!" He exclaimed, his temper rising again, "So now the entire world revolves around you! You were just an accident. You got in the way, that's all."

"It tried to kill me!"

"It was after me, not you. Last night, in the shop, I was there, you blundered in, almost ruined the whole thing. This morning, I was tracking it down, it was tracking me down... The only reason it fixed on you is because you've met me." He finished.

"So what you're saying," She recapped, incredulous, "is the entire world revolves around you."

"Sort of, yeah."

"You're full of it!" She exclaimed. They'd been walking along the street for some time now.

"Sort of, yeah." He said in that tone, like he'd only just thought of it like that.

"But, all this plastic stuff, who else knows about it?" She asked. If she could talk to someone... Maybe it'd leave her mind alone, then. Maybe she wouldn't have to stay awake at night like she'd done yesterday... Maybe she wouldn't dream about it.

"No one."

"What, you're on your own?" She asked with a twinge of pity.

"Well, who else is there?" He asked, "I mean, you lot? I mean, all you do is eat chips, go to bed and watch the telly, while all the time, underneath you, there's a war going on."

"Okay. Start from the beginning." She persisted. "I mean, if we're going to go with the living plastic, and I don't even believe that, but if we do, how did you kill it?"

"The thing controlling projects life into the arm, I cut off the signal. Dead." He explained.

"So, that's radio control?" She asked, putting it into something she could understand, turning it over in her mind seriously.

"Thought control." He corrected.

Rose was scared again. How could something be that advanced... That... Alien?

"You all right?" He asked, seeing her expression.

"Yeah." She answered, "So who's controlling it then?"

"Long story."

"So what's it all for? I mean, shop window dummies? What's that about?" She asked, before grinning conspiratorially, leaning closer to him, just slightly, "Is someone trying to take over Britain's shops?"

He laughed, and she laughed with him. The idea was quite funny: a man in a grey suit or a woman all pressed into starched business skirts, using a telivision remote to control an army of mannequins.

The Doctor stopped laughing suddenly and said harshly, "No."

"Oh, no." She replied, attempting to stop laughing at the serious glare in his eye.

"It's not a price war." He said lightly, chuckling again. "They want to overthrow the human race and destroy you. Do you believe me?"

"No." She answered honestly.

"But you're still listening."

That was true. He was obviously mental, as well as a mystery. She should just walk away, go look for another job, go on with her life.

But she had to know. "Really though Doctor. Who are you?"

He stopped just a few steps ahead of her and grinned. "Do you know," He began, "like we were saying, about the Earth revolving? It's like, when you were a kid, the first time they tell you that the world's turning, and you just can't quite believe it because everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it." He took her hand, his palm warm and surprisingly rough against hers. He continuing, "The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the Sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world and if we let go... That," He finished, dropping her hand, "that's who I am. Now, forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home." And he walked away with the deadly plastic arm, leaving Rose to stand there for a moment, watching him as he strode to an old-fashioned, dark-blue police box. It was in that moment that Rose Tyler knew, just like she knew the Earth was spinning, that she wouldn't forget him.

She walked away though, and didn't see him turning the key in the lock, the lock with twenty-one different mechanisms in it that had to be touched with the key in just the right way. As she trailed her hand along some railings, he let himself into another world within the blue box.

It was a breeze that made her stop, tilting her head slightly when she heard a sound of whooshing, wheezing engines. It was a sound without a source, and one more enigma for Rose to wonder at.

She ran towards the police box, shielding her eyes from the bright sunshine. What if it was aliens? What if the plastic things were back and that noise was their controller?

The noise was fading, and as Rose looked around the street corner, she saw that the blue box was gone, and so, in a daze she walked away. Just one more enigma to think about...

 

She decided to go to Mickey's. He had a computer and good Internet connection, and it was obvious she wasn't getting answers from the Doctor. He must be out there somewhere, and Rose Tyler was sure she'd find him if she typed in his name and maybe something about a blue box. She was almost certain he was connected with the disappearing blue box.

Mickey opened the door with a smile, saying, "Hey, hey! Here's my woman! Kit off." He teased.

"Oh shut up." She smiled.

"Coffee?"

"Yeah, only if you wash the mug." She nagged, stepping inside her boyfriend's flat. "And I don't mean rinse, I mean wash. Can I use your computer?"

"Yeah. Any excuse to get in the bedroom." He joked.

That was where the thing was, and stepping through, Rose sat down at the monitor.

"Don't read my emails!" He shouted from the kitchen.

Rose considered shouting something back, maybe, "Wouldn't dream of it." But decided instead to stare at the monitor.

What do you search? How do you search, when you're looking for a man who never even gives his real name? Where do you look for a riddle, and why? Rose wasn't sure, so she did what to her seemed best: kept it simple.

"Doctor" she typed into the search engine. Over seventeen million results. No, that was too many... She had to narrow it down somewhat...

"Doctor living plastic" she typed out. Only fifty-five thousand. Well, at least it was better than seventeen million...

"Doctor blue box" she typed. The first one looked interesting: "Doctor Who? Do you know this man? Contact Clive here." Rose clicked the link, and found herself staring into the face of the Doctor.

 

Mickey didn't like this. Rose could see that in the way he gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white, in the way that a vein on his arm bulged. She could hear it in his voice as he begged to go in with her. But she couldn't let him, she couldn't tell him about all this...

"You're not coming in!" She said crossly when they reached their destination, an average-looking house in the suburbs. "He's safe, he's got a wife and kids."

"Yeah, who told you that?" Mickey asked angrily. "He did. That's exactly what an Internet lunatic murderer would say."

Rose got out of the car. Mickey looked worried, but stayed in. Rose caught him looking suspiciously at a man nearby, putting out the rubbish.

Rose went across the street and knocked at the door. She didn't know if this man could help her, would help her. But she had to try.

A little boy answered, and Rose said unsurely, "Um, hello. I've come to see Clive? We've been emailing."

"Oh." He said shortly, before shouting to the house at large, "Dad! It's one of your nutters!"

Clive came to the door quickly.

"Oh, sorry. You must be Rose. I'm Clive. Obviously." He said. His accent was northern, Yorkshire maybe.

"I better tell you now my boyfriend's waiting in the car, just in case you're going to kill me." She said, grinning up at him.

"No, good point. No murders." He said, congenially.

"Who is it?" Rose heard a woman's voice call out.

"Oh, it's about the Doctor." Clive answered, "She's been reading the website. Please, come through, I'm in the shed." Clive addressed Rose.

"She?" The woman's voice was incredulous. "She's read a website about the Doctor. She's a she?" Clive's wife shut the door, after having a brief look at Rose.

When they reached the shed, Clive said, "A lot of this stuff's quite sensitive, I couldn't just send it to you. People might intercept... If you know what I mean. If you dig deep enough, and keep a lively mind this Doctor keeps popping up all over the place: political diaries, conspiracy theories and ghost stories. No first name, no last name, just the Doctor. Always the Doctor... And the title seems to be passed down from father to son, it appears to be an inheritance. That's your Doctor there." He pointed to a photograph, one of the many that plastered the room.

"Yeah." Rose answered, looking at it.

"I tracked it down to the Washington Public Archive just last year. The online photo's inhanced, but if you look at the original..."

And there he was, in the crowd of people in the photo, watching John F. Kennedy's car go past. It made no sense, but did anything anymore?

"November 22, 1963." Clive confirmed softly. "The assassination of President Kennedy.

"It must be his father..."

"Going further back, april 1912." He held up another photograph. "This is a photograph of the Daniels family... And friend. This was taken the day before they were due to sail for the New World, but for some unknown reason, they cancelled the trip and survived. And here we are... 1883, another Doctor. But look, the same image. He's identical! This one washed up on the course of Sumatra, the night Krakatoa exploded. The Doctor is a legend woven through history: when disaster comes, he's there. He brings the storm in his wake, and he has one constant companion."

"Who's that?" Rose asked softly, looking at the photos, but not really and truly seeing them.

"Death. If the Doctor's back... If you've seen him, Rose," Clive continued grimly, "then one thing's for certain: we're all in danger."

Rose looked at Clive incredulously as he fiddled with photos and continued speaking: "If he's singled you out, if the Doctor's making house calls, then god help you."

"But who is he?" Rose asked somewhat desperately, "Who do you think he is?" She couldn't believe this man was evil or dangerous, not after he saved her life.

"I think he's the same man." Clive stated, with all the gravity of one person telling another that they had cancer, "I think he's immortal. I think he's an alien from another world."

Clive looked at her levelly. He wasn't laughing, he wasn't even smiling. He truly believed this rediculous impossible theory. He was serious, and this sealed it: Rose had to go.

 

Mickey sat in the car, tapping the steering wheel impatiently. Why was Rose like this, so adventurous? Why'd she insist on tracking down this Doctor guy? Surely she knew that anything connected with the explosion at Henrick's was dangerous! Who cared who he was? Mickey tapped out his angst on the wheel, but he found it only heightened his impatience.

A wheeled rubbish bin began to roll itself along the pavement. At first, Mickey wasn't sure he was actually seeing it... But there it was, a bin moving of its own accord across the street, moving toward him. It trembled slightly, almost as if some inside force were trying to get out.

After a few moments, it stopped. Leaning out of the car, Mickey studied it.

It sat still for just a second, then continued on its way, rattling as it rolled forward. There was always the possibility someone had been shoved in there, a small child maybe, as the butt of a mean joke. It could be nothing else, if you thought about it.

Mickey got out of the car. If there was a child in there, he had to get it out... Children shouldn't be stuffed in bins, especially when they were too dumb to knock the thing over and free themselves.

Looking around, checking for other children, he walked to the bin, and looked around the back. Cautiously, Mickey layed a hand on the lid. There was no vibration coming from the bin, so with the same caution, he lifted the lid.

"Come out then." Mickey said cheerfully, looking into the dark interior of the bin.

It was empty? No, no. That couldn't be right... Mickey began to turn away, to lift his hands, but found he couldn't. He tried again, moving his hands upwards. Plastic stuck to his fingertips, stretching like elastic the farther his hands came from the lid.

And that wasn't right. Mickey fought harder. So did the bin. He could have sworn he heard a groaning sound from the thing, the thing that ought to have been inanimate, needed to be inanimate for Mickey's well-structured, if imperfect, world to stay together.

And so he kept pulling, and so did the bin. With one last surge of effort, Mickey stretched the lid's plastic as far as he could, the bin groaning at him all the while... But it was futile. The lid snapped back then opened up, swallowing the young man whole.

The bin settled, like a man after he's just eaten a large steak. It belched, then was still. The street was calm and silent once more, as though Mickey had never lived to walk along it.

 

"All right, he's a nutter, off his head, complete online conspiracy freak." Rose said, exiting the house and sliding into the passenger seat of her boyfriend's car, looking over at him and saying: "You win! What're we gonna do tonight? I fancy a pizza."

"Pizza." The man beside her heartily agreed, as though going out and having a pizza were the greatest idea in the world.

"Mmm... Or Chinese." Rose sighed, relishing in the warmth and contentment a night in with Mickey brought her.

"Pizza. Pizza." He said, but Rose's thoughts were already with the future, with him and a pizza somewhere and then a night in front of the telly, pretending to care about a football match. With normalcy.

With her thoughts a few hours away, Rose didn't really look at the man beside her, the one that looked and sounded like Mickey. She didn't see the blank look to his eyes, the frozen smile on his face. Her vision didn't linger on the plastic features that held it, along with the likeness of her boyfriend. She did, however, register the swerviness with which he drove them.

 

"Do you think I should try the hospital?" Rose asked, when the two were set up at a table of the local pizza restaurant, "Suki said there are jobs going in the canteen. Is that it, then, dishing out chips." She said, gloomily.

"I could do A Levels." She continued, brightening some, "I don't know. It's all Jimmy Stone's fault. I only left school because of him, but look where he ended up. What do you think?"

"So where did you meet this "doctor"?" Mickey asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry, was I talking about me for a second?" Rose asked, annoyed.

"'Cause I reckon it all started back at the shop, am I right? Because I reckon it had something to do with that."

"No... Sort of." Rose answered. She had to keep things minimal, she couldn't have Mickey getting jealous... Men were weird like that.

"What was he doing there?" Mickey asked angrily.

"I'm not going on about it, Mickey, 'cause... I know it sounds daft but... I don't think it's safe. He's dangerous." Rose decided. She lowered her voice for the last statement, leaning forward slightly, just to keep any eavesdroppers from getting the wrong idea.

"But you can trust me, sweetheart, babe, sugar, babe." His voice changed pitches with the endearments, but became normal again as he continued, "You can tell me anything. Tell me about the Doctor and what he's planning and I can help you Rose, 'cause that's all I really want to do., sweetheart, babe, sugar, sweetheart." He finished normally again.

Only, it wasn't normal. Mickey sounded fake, like an actor on a stage. And since when had he called her "sugar"?

"What're you doing that for?" Rose asked, with a nervous laugh. Was he on something, maybe?

"Your champagne." A waiter said grandly, standing beside the table with a bottle.

But Rose barely glanced at him. Her eyes were only for the man across from her. Had he always been that ebrasive? Had he always pried so much? Had he always been so self-centered, and had his skin always been that shiny?

"We didn't order any champagne." Mickey deadpanned, then, turning back to Rose, asked in the same flat tones, "Where's the Doctor?"

"Madam, your champagne." The waiter held the bottle out to Rose now.

"It's not ours." She said distractedly, batting it away before asking, "Mickey, what is it? What's wrong?"

"I need to find out how much you know, so where is he?" Mickey asked savagely.

"Doesn't anybody want this champagne?" The waiter asked, almost offendedly. He began to surreptitiously shake the bottle.

"Look, we didn't order it," Mickey began, but stopped himself, taking a good long look at the man serving them, noting his leather jacket and cropped hair before proclaiming: "Ha, gotcha."

And Rose saw him too. It was the Doctor.

"Don't mind me. Just toasting the happy couple. On the house!" The Doctor said, pulling the champagne cork, which flew toward Mickey, embedding itself in his forehead. Rose stared in shock as the not-Mickey spat it out.

"Anyway." He continued, his hand melting into a large chopper. He smashed through the table and Rose screamed. That wasn't Mickey. No doubt that hadn't been Mickey for a long time.

"Hold it together." She thought. "For these people, you have to hold it together."

The Doctor grabbed not-Mickey's head the began to yank upward. After a few seconds of concentrated effort, it came away in his hand with a loud popping sound. And now Rose wasn't the only one screaming.

"Don't think that's gonna stop me." He rasped, but the Doctor just grinned down at the plastic head.

She rushed to the fire alarm, pulling it. "Everyone out! Out now!" She shouted at the top of her voice.

She led the stampede from the restaurant, the customers running out with her, away from the wildly flailing plastic thing that had appeared to be one of them. It charged after them, destroying almost everything in its wake.

"Get out! Get out! GET OUT!" Rose kept yelling, demanding, hoping they would obey her.

And she didn't know how it happened. She thought she'd never know how it happened, but before she could really comprehend what was happening, she and the Doctor had broken away and were sprinting toward the kitchens, and everyone else was going any which way but it didn't really matter as long as she got out. A scientist would have called it animal fear.

Not-Mickey was pounding the tables, leaving them in splinters, his heavy hands smashing and bashing almost at random. But he was still on their tail, somehow, some way. He followed them to a metal door, which the Doctor opened as they approached.

He secured the lock with the silver device, and Rose ran down the alley outside the restaurant. So concentrated on getting out, getting away, Rose nearly hit the padlocked gates head-on. They were metal and sturdy and she couldn't get through. The padlock wouldn't break.

"Open the gate! Use the tube thing, come on!" Rose shouted impatiently.

"Sonic screwdriver." He corrected.

"Use it!" She shouted, her eyes darting over her shoulder.

"Nah." He said nonchalont, "Tell you what, let's go in here." He walked to the battered blue phone booth, unlocking it with a key he'd seemingly produced from nowhere.

"You can't hide inside a wooden box!" Rose panicked, glaring at the police telephone box, into which the Doctor had hurried.

There was no time for this stupidity! She had to get out of this alley. She was boxed in, and she felt claustrophobia bubbling inside her. "It's gonna get us! Doctor!" She shouted. There was nothing for it. She had to brave the wooden box.

She rushed inside, eyes darting around the vast interior. Then back out. She stepped back toward the door, looking at the box. Yes, definitely smaller on the outside, bigger on the inside... This didn't make much sense anymore.

Her mind was made up for her by not-Mickey, rushing out the metal door. Rose ran into the box, looking around the vast, futuristic space.

There were bronze-colored hexagonal decorations around the walls, and some kind of console in the middle, raised on a grated platform. The Doctor was working at the six-sided centerpiece of the room, plugging the plastic head into some wires, attaching some kind of electrodes to it. He set it on top of the console.

"It's gonna follow us." She whimpered, standing still a moment, catching her breath.

"The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried." The Doctor said, matter-of-factly. "Now, shut up a minute. You see, the arm was too simple, but the head's perfect. I can use it to trace the signal back to the original source. Right, where do you wan to start?" He finished, looking proud of himself.

"Um..." Rose started, considering how best to tell him. "The inside's bigger than the outside?" She asked, unsure.

"Yes." He confirmed.

"It's alien." She stated.

"Yep."

"Are you alien?" She asked flatly.

"Yes." He said quietly, "That all right?"

"Yeah..." She said, softly, trying to steady herself mentally, make her thoughts slow down, make sense.

Now that she wasn't running for her life from a plastic version of her boyfriend, Rose Tyler couldn't help but think: Mickey, the real Mickey, her Mickey, was dead. Dead and gone and no one would probably ever find his body... And someone would have to tell his mother.

But the Doctor was speaking again, and Rose tried to listen: "It's called the TARDIS, this thing. T A R D I S. That's Time And Relative Dimension In Space."

But Rose couldn't hold it in. There was no way anyone could hold this in. Mickey was dead, plastic was alive, (at least some of it), she was in an alien spaceship with an alien man... And he was so blazébout this, as if it was nothing and a young man with his whole life ahead of him hadn't just died, and plastic creatures attacked innocent people every day... And who knew maybe they did... Before Rose could comprehend anything, she was crying.

"Culture shock." He said, almost reassuring her, "Happens to the best of us."

"Did they kill him?" She asked hysterically, but attempted to compose herself as she said his name, "Mickey. Did, did they kill Mickey, is he dead?"

"Oh." He said shortly, "I didn't think of that."

"He's my boyfriend. You pulled off his head... They copied him and you didn't even think?! And now you're just going to let him melt?" She exploded indignantly.

"Melt?" He asked, in surprise.

Sure enough, the plastic head was melting all over the console, disintegrating fast.

"Wait a minute, I've got it." He said, before losing his temper altogether. "OH no no no no no! Hold on... Almost there... Almost there... Here we go..."

The Doctor ran past her suddenly, opening the doors and exiting the box, the TARDIS. "You can't go out there!" Rose shouted. "It's not safe!"

She followed him outside, cautiously. They stood on the bank of the river Thames, at nighttime.

"I lost the signal. I got so close!" He said, frustratedly.

"We've moved." Rose commented, intrigued. "Does it fly?" She asked.

"Disappears there, reappears here. You wouldn't understand."

"But if we're somewhere else," Rose asked, processing, "What about that headless thing? It's still on the loose."

"It melted with the head. Are you going to witter on all night?" He asked, impatiently.

"I'll have to tell his mother." She replied softly, mostly to herself.

The Doctor looked at her in question. "Mickey!" She exclaimed. "I'll have to tell his mother he's dead and you just went and forgot him, again! You were right: you are alien."

"Look, if I did forget some kid called Mickey,"

"Yeah, he's not a kid,"

"It's because I'm busy, trying to save the life of every stupid ape, blundering about on top of this planet, all right?" He continued, as though she'd never spoken at all.

"All right?!" She shouted, indignant too, glaring daggers at him.

"Yes, it is!" He replied, just as angry.

"If you are an alien," She started. She was going to get answers from him now. "How comes you sound like you're from the north?"

"Lots of planets have a north!" He was offended now.

"What's a police public call box?" Rose asked tiredly. She wanted to move this conversation to safer ground... He really was quite terrifying when he was angry.

"It's a telephone box from the 1950s. It's a disguise." He said, cheerful again.

"Okay. And this, this living plastic. What's it got against us?" She asked, returning to the matter at hand.

"Nothing, it loves you." He replied, "You've gote such a good planet, lots of smoke and oil; plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air. Perfect. Just what the Nestene needs. Its food stock was destroyed in the war, all its protein planets rotted."

"Is there any way to stop it?" She asked.

"Anti-plastic." He said, holding up a clear vial filled with a blue liquid of some kind.

"Anti-plastic." Rose said skeptically.

"Anti-plastic." He agreed with what could either be described as impatience or excitement. (Rose hoped it was the former.)

"But first, I've got to find it." He continued, "How can you hide something that big in a city this small?"

"Hold on," Rose said, raising a finger to shush him, "Hide what?"

"The transmitter. The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."

"What's it look like?"

"Like a transmitter. Round and massive. Somewhere slap-bang in the middle of London. A huge, metal, circular structure, like a dish, like a wheel. Radial. Close to where we're standing. Must be completely invisible."

Rose was astounded. He'd been implying she was stupid this whole time and yet he couldn't see it. Just across Westminster Bridge, which was just in front of them, on the south bank of the Thames was the London Eye. It fit the description: big, circular, metal, a wheel. It was so unlikely that she knew something he didn't, Rose wanted to laugh.

"What?" He asked, when she looked at him in question. Maybe he was joking?

Rose looked at him again. "What?" He asked again. He wasn't.

She nodded, indicated the London Eye. "What is it? What?" He asked again, more impatient with her.

He was looking around, he'd see it any second and... "Oh." He said, in revelation. "Fantastic!" He grinned, and then sprinted over Westminster Bridge, Rose at his heels.

She caught up with him halfway across the bridge, and he took her hand. They continued running like that. Down the steps they ran, finally stopping near the Eye.

"Think of it." The Doctor said, "Plastic, all over the world, every artificial thing waiting to come alive. The shop window dummies, the phones, the wires, the cables,"

"The breast implants." Rose finished. She couldn't get the horrifying image of one of her mum's friends, screaming as her breasts grew to cartoonish size, or maybe shrinking as the plastic went through her ribcage and went on its fatal way to her heart. The picture sent a shiver down Rose's spine.

"Still, we found the transmitter." The Doctor continued, "The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath." His eyes were downcast, looking for an entrance or a trapdoor or something.

Rose walked a little way away to look herself. "What about down here?" She called, standing at the edge of the parapet. Below her, she could see steps, which seemed to descend to some kind of manhole cover.

The Doctor joined her. "Looks good to me." He confirmed, and the two walked down the steps to the square structure, with a circular hatch, not a manhule cover at all.

It took no time for the Doctor to unascrew the hatch, and the two entered the structure.

The whole place was bathed in a red misty light almost hellish in nature. They climbed down a ladder into a small brick room, scattered about which were dozens of thick, metal chains.

Looking back for Rose, the Doctor walked to a door, farther into the room. Rose followed close behind.

He opened the door into another room, and she looked in to see a vat of some kind of melted plastic. It was almost magma-ish, this plastic, melty and malleable and boiling. It glowed bright and sickly yellow.

"The Nestene Consciousness." The Doctor explained, pointing at it. "That's it, inside the vat, a living plastic creature."

"Well then," Rose said darkly, "tip in your anti-plastic and let's go." She didn't like this place. It felt... Bad or wrong somehow, and the fact that she could almost feel the plastic-filled vat watching her wasn't helping.

"I'm not here to kill it." The Doctor said seriously, taking a half-step closer to Rose, "I've got to give it a chance."

She couldn't argue that, so she merely watched him descend some steps, stopping only when he stood on a balcony, looking out over the Nestene Consciousness, its sickly yellow light bathing his face and giving it a sinister appearance.

"I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousment under peaceful contract, according to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation." He said, impressively.

The vat rippled in response.

"Thank you." He said, as though replying to something it had said. "If I might have permission to approach."

Rose looked away from the Doctor and the Nestene Consciousness and she spotted something beautiful. Not in the classical sense, but to her it was more beautiful than anything classical ever could be.

Mickey. He huddled on the ground, almost in the fetal position. He didn't appear to be hurt, but Rose didn't think she'd ever seen him that pale.

"Mickey, it's me." She shouted into the chamber, rushing over to him. "It's okay, it's all right." She said, sitting beside him.

"That thing down there, the liquid, Rose. It can talk." He said in manically reply.

"You're stinking." She said to Mickey as she pulled him to her. The smell really was something, a mix of old socks, melted plastic and cement glue. "Doctor, they kept him alive." She shouted grimly into the chamber.

"Yeah, that was always a possibility: keep him alive to maintain the copy." The Doctor replied distractedly, eyes still on the vat of plastic.

"You knew that and you never said." She stated rather than asked angrily. How could one man be so callous? How could he so casually withhold vital information like that?

"Can we keep the domestics outside, thank you?" The Doctor asked, annoyed.

As Rose helped Mickey up, her hand firmly placed inside his much larger one, the Doctor stepped down onto a platform, directly above the Nestene vat. A shape of some sort began to rise from the main lake of the plastic.

"Am I addressing the Consciousness?" He asked, then a pause before: "Thank you. If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest, with the greatest respect that you shunt off?"

Obviously angered, the Consciousness roared in response. Rose cringed.

"Oh, don't give me that. It's an invasion, plain and simple! Don't talk about constitutional rights." He said angrily.

It roared again, as if interrupting, but the Doctor yelled over the sound without fear, saying: "I am talking!" In quieter tones, he said, "This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learned to walk, but they're capable of so much more. I'm asking you: just go." He was impassioned but...

Once again, Rose knew something he didn't. Or rather, she saw something he didn't. Two mannequins were advancing on him from behind. They were reaching out, they'd probably shove him into the vat like two naughty boys shoving another into a swimming pool...

"Doctor!" She shouted. He was not going to die like this, she was not going to die like this, her planet was not going to be invaded like this.

One dummy reached into the Doctor's pocket, producing the vial of blue liquid. The Consciousness roared at the sight. It was louder, almost higher-pitched, and although Rose didn't speak gloop, she was pretty sure the Consciousness was scared. Really scared.

"That was just insurance, I wasn't going to use it." The Doctor said, but he sounded as though he were defending himself, as though he were assuring himself.

The Nestene Consciousness roared. It was obviously having none of this, and it was terrifying. Rose wanted to retreat, to pull Mickey with her up the stairs and run for it, but she couldn't. She was rooted to the spot, Mickey still squeezing her hand in the same position.

"I was not attacking you. I'm here to help. I'm not your enemy. I swear, I'm not." He said, every word penetrating through the roaring of the living plastic.

But it was clear that the Nestene Consciousness was still not convinced. It roared again, louder.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

A door opened, and there sat the TARDIS: battered and blue and beautiful in that moment. Mickey and Rose could run there, hadn't he said the assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through those navy-blue doors? But Rose's legs wouldn't obey her. It was like the floor had transformed into quicksand and Rose was sinking, sinking farther and farther into the ground.

"No, no, no." He said, in response to something the plastic had roared. "Honestly, no."

A roar that was mixed with a scream and then, "Yes, that's my ship."

A roar, almost indignant, if living plastic could be that way. The Doctor said in a panic: "That's not true, I should know, I was there, I fought in the war, it wasn't my fault,"

But the roaring interrupted him, again. And after a moment, he continued: "I couldn't save your world, I couldn't save any of them."

And Rose saw it. The brokenness in his eyes, the look of a man who'd seen it all and somehow, some way, survived. But he still saw those things, every night when he went to sleep. That was obvious in that millisecond.

The Consciousness was roaring again, rising from its vat and Rose could feel her body beginning to unfreeze. "What's it doing?" She asked, almost panicking herself.

"It's the TARDIS." The Doctor explained, still panicky, "The Nestene's identified it as superior technology. It's terrified. It's going to the final phase: it's starting the invasion. Get out Rose! Just leg it now!" And this time, he was panicked for her sake.

Rose pulled out her phone and with shaking fingers pressed the buttons to call her mother. She stood tensely, a quaking Mickey beside her, still rooted to the spot.

"Mum?" She shouted into the phone when the ringing stopped.

"Oh there you are, I was just going to phone. You can get compensation, I said so. I've got this document thing off the police. Don't thank me." Jackie said in a rush.

Compensation? Who cared about that now? Rose couldn't help but inwardly roll her eyes.

"Where are you Mum?" She asked, shouting to be heard over the plastic's roaring.

"I'm in town!" Her mum shouted back.

"No, go home, just go home right now." Rose yelled back.

"Darling, you're breaking up. Listen'" she said on the end and her voice was getting fuzzy now, "I'm just going to do a bit of late-night shopping. I'll see you later. Ta-ra!" And she hung up.

"Mum! Mum!" Rose shouted into the phone, but it was no good.

A bolt of forked lightning arced from the Nestene Consciousness, the plastic rippling.

"It's the activation signal!" The Doctor yelled, wild-eyed, "It's transmitting!

A dome, transluscent and perfect, began to form over the Nestene Consciousness. It appeared to Rose as though it were sealing itself inside a cocoon. But Rose knew it wasn't going to turn into a pretty butterfly that would do no harm.

No, it was shielding itself. Shielding itself so that it could begin the invasion, kill them all and let the living plastic devour them.

"The end of the world." Rose said, a quaver in her voice as she turned to Mickey.

 

The end of the world and no one seemed to see it. Concentric circles of electric-blue light radiated off the Eye of London and no one seemed to notice. Not even Clive, the conspiracy theorist, who apparently noticed everything.

"No point creating a spreadsheet if you're going to spend summer money in winter months." He was saying to his wife.

They'd just been out for a walk and some shopping. Their son had torn one of his best shirts the previous afternoon and he needed a replacement for a school assembly the next day.

His wife gasped, causing Clive to stop in his tracks, just in time to see a dummy in a shop window move. "Oh my God! I thought they were dummies. I nearly had a heart attack." She clutched her chest theatrically.

Clive looked around. What was she talking about? He was the one with all the crazy theories... Or not. Because if she meant the almost skeletal figures in the shop windows wearing the latest fashions, those were definitely dummies.

Clive was about to open his mouth and say something, but was interrupted by the shattering of glass. Some of the dummies had launched themselves at the shop window, shattering it. They were advancing into the street now, moving slowly and stiffly but with purpose.

"It's true." Clive said softly, looking in amazement at the dummies, shattering their shop windows and making their way along in a zombie-ish manner, "Everything I read, all the stories. It's all true!"

Clive took a half-step closer. The hand of the nearest dummy folded down and a gun extended from the plastic wrist. It aimed and then it fired.

Searing pain tore through his chest, and then he was gone. Just like that, like the snuffing of a candle flame. But in that moment before leaving, that teeny tiny fraction of a second, Clive felt that he had seen the truth of the universe in the blank eyes of the mannequin.

 

Jackie Tyler was standing on an escalator in the shopping arcade, a plastic bag of things looped over her arm. Was this real? Was she halucinating? Had there been something in her cup of tea this morning? She hoped not.

The dummies moving through the arcade were child-sized. They could have been children... Almost, if you ignored the stiff movements and blank faces. No child moved that stiffly.

They marched from the shop like an army of robot children. In truth, they weren't far-off. But this couldn't be real.

But it was. The dummies were firing indiscriminately into the crowd of shoppers, tiny bullets flying from their tiny wrists. Children of death. And everyone was panicking, so this had to be real. And if it was real, that meant she could die.

Run away and live, she decided. as Jackie dropped her shopping and ran for it. She had to get away, not die and then call Rose... Rose was alive, right?

 

"Get out Rose, just GET OUT!" The Doctor was yelling. "Run!"

"The stairs are gone." Rose said, her voice high-pitched with the hysteria she felt bubbling up inside her.

Time seemed to stand still for about a minute, but it was moving again and so was Rose, dragging Mickey behind her for the first step or two. They rushed to the TARDIS.

"I haven't got the key!" Rose realized and her eyes darted this way and that. She was going to die, right here, right now in this underground chamber and this plastic stuff was going to take over the world.

"We're going to die." Mickey said, in the tone one might use to pray one last time.

She huddled beside Mickey, as though she'd already surrendered. Mickey clung to the TARDIS like a child clings to its mother or a sailor clings to a floatation device when chucked into the sea. Rose looked around, there had to be another possibility somewhere.

There it was, that roiling, boiling vat of plastic controlling those dummies. The Doctor was going to get shoved in. He fought them, but they were strong, and although he was too, he was outnumbered two to one. He was going to die with them.

 

Jackie made it out. She tried to stay to the middle of the mass of panicked shoppers, to lose herself in them.

She wasn't even sure that was a good idea though. The dummies were shooting at random and there was no guarantee Jackie could avoid getting hit.

A taxi driver was shot down, and his car careened, crashing into another one. And that was the cover Jackie needed. She darted behind the car and took a deep breath. She was safe, or as safe as one could be among an army of living dolls.

The shattering of the glass behind her was echoed in Jackie's heart. There went her hope. She looked back to find three plastic brides coming at her. They moved slowly, their wedding dresses swishing around their plasticky legs. The bride in the middle had a train, a gossamer thing that trailed along behind her. Jackie Tyler was transfixed on that train.

She couldn't help thinking, "At least it was a pretty last sight.", as the bride raised her plastic hand and Jackie Tyler, simply put, prepared to die.

 

"Time Lord." The plastic burbled as the Doctor looked up at Rose. She could tell by the look in his eyes that he was about to surrender too.

The Doctor was still fighting though, gritting his teeth as he tried to force his arm ouwards, to get the anti-plastic.

When you die, they say your whole life flashes before your eyes. But it wouldn't really be like that for Rose. Fire burned behind her eyes and shone through to the outside world as courage.

Rose hadn't ever really had much. Money? Nah, she'd grown up on a council estate with a single mum who, even after doing all she could, just barely made ends meet. Friends? Yeah, Rose had Shireen, but that was pretty much all, at least all that mattered. She didn't have a father, she wasn't particularly clever or pretty or maybe even all that brave. But there was one thing she did have, one simple childish thing that made her unique when put up to all the others. And though it might not save them, it might not even be very much, it was all she had that would help her here.

She stood up, determined. She was NOT going to die in this place, huddling beside a blue box. Her eyes darted to the Doctor.

"Just leave him!" Mickey begged. "There's nothing you can do!"

Rose grabbed an axe, smiling sadly. "I've got no A-Levels, no job, no future." She stated flatly, before continuing, her grin widening, "But I'll tell you what I have got. Jericho Street Junior School under 7s gymnastics team. I've got the bronze."

She thrust the axe forward, chopping through a rope that was securing an exceedingly long chain. It came away partially from the wall and Rose took a firm grip on it. She took a few steps back and sprinted forward, tucking her legs in to swing toward the Doctor.

He'd overpowered one of the mannequins, but not the right one. That was her bit. She kicked out with her left leg, praying that it wouldn't cause her to lose momentum, to be stuck over the vat, hanging over the gloop. Instead, her foot connected with the solid plastic, shoving it into the vat, along with the vial of anti-plastic it held.

The Nestene Consciousness screamed. It was the only one who was going to die here today, not Rose, Not the Doctor, not Mickey.

"Rose!" The Doctor called. She was swinging back now, and she had to let go...

She fell into his arms and found herself pushing against his chest to steady herself and stay upright.

The Nestene Consciousness was beginning to turn blue, infected by the anti-plastic probably. It was still shrieking, as though it knew now that this was the end. Maybe its life was flashing before its eyes, or whatever passed for eyes in the thinking of a Nestene Consciousness.

"Now we're in trouble." The Doctor said, as large fireballs began to fly from the dying Consciousness, lighting the chamber, beginning to fill it with flame.  
Mickey was still embracing the TARDIS as the Doctor unlocked it. The Nestene Consciousness was stretching and seitheing in pain, shrieking to the last. And the room was filling with fire. Rose didn't stay to watch it burn. She grabbed Mickey and herded him inside.

When both the humans were in, the Doctor pulled a lever, causing the ship to fade in and then out, dematerializing from the inferno and the dying plastic.

 

The London Eye's short-term electric current was subsiding, and mannequins were malfunctioning all over the street. Jackie didn't know what to think. She stared down the brides, the ones who wanted to kill her.

But they were backing away. All the dummies were. But Jackie Tyler was damned if she came out of hiding.

The mannequins were falling now, as though they themselves had been shot. They lie on the pavement, twitching feebly. A plastic head with no body rolled toward Jackie, and she got to her feet. That was her cue.

The street was a war zone. Small fires burned here and there, and the mannequins were twitching and trembling like dying soldiers. People milled about, some tended to the wounded who lay among the dolls.

Her phone was ringing. She stared at it a second, barely comprehending what she was seeing. It was her daughter's number. She picked it up. "Rose! Rose, don't go out of the house, it's not safe. No, there were these things, and they were shooting and they," She babbled.

But the other end of the line was dead. "Hello?" She asked, "Hello?"

 

Mickey was the first to tumble out of the blue box. Rose exited just behind him, already dialing her mum.

"Rose! Rose, don't go out of the house, it's not safe. No, there were these things, and they were shooting and they..." Her mother was babbling, but at least she was okay.

Rose hung up. What was she supposed to say? "Hey mum, sorry about that, I was helping stop an alien invasion. Hope I didn't worry you." No, that wouldn't work.

She rushed to Mickey, standing at his side, before whirling to the Doctor, at whom Mickey was already pointing a finger in accusation.

"Fat lot of good you were." She said coldly.

"Nestene Consciousness?" He asked no one in particular, snapping his fingers arrogantly, "Easy."

"You were useless in there. You'd be dead if it wasn't for me." She countered, glaring.

"Yes, I would." He agreed gravely, arrogance gone, "Thank you. Right then, I'll be off. Unless, er, I don't know, you could come with me. This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge."

"Don't." Mickey spoke up hoarsely, "He's an alien, he's a thing."

"He's not invited." The Doctor decided, glaring at Mickey.

"What do you think?" He asked, turning to Rose, "You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go... Anywhere."

"Is it always this dangerous?" Rose asked, the flutters of fear still in her stomach, in her brain, causing her heart to beat a thousand kilometers a minute.

"Yeah." He answered shortly.

"Yeah I can't, I've, um, got to go and find my mum and," She said, looking for excuses aside from the truth, that she didn't know if she wanted to live with her heart in her throat all the time, she could say anything but that. She looked at Mickey and continued, "someone's got to look after this stupid lump. So..." Her voice trailed away.

"Okay." The Doctor said, his tone disappointed. "See you around." He held her gaze for a moment, then turned away with half a smile on his face.

He closed the door behind him, and the box began to disappear with a whooshing, wheezing grinding sound. It kicked up a breeze, which made Rose's hair flutter and blow into her face, and leaves on the ground flutter.

She couldn't help but remember, as she watched those fluttery leaves and listen to the fading sound of the dematerializing TARDIS.

Something the Doctor had said this morning stuck in her head though. "All you do is eat chips, go to bed and watch the telly..."

She'd just saved the world from living plastic, and yeah, it had been terrifying, and yeah she thought she was going to die but Rose couldn't help but admit, at least to herself, that she liked it. She liked that breaking of the circle, to do something different than eating chips, watching telivision and going to bed. There was so much more in the universe.

But she'd already said no, and she really shouldn't linger on it.

"Come on, let's go." She said softly into the silence that followed his departure, turning to Mickey.

"Come on." She repeated, "Come on." They began to walk away, and it took everything Rose had not to turn back and stare at where that box had been.

The sound of the TARDIS reached her ears. Oh, this was cruel! Rose couldn't help it, she spun around. She began to walk back as it rematerialized.

"By the way," The Doctor said in a rush, opening the doors, "did I mention it also travels in time?"

Rose grinned. Never mind the circle, she was going time-traveling. Maybe she could meet her father...

She turned to Mickey before saying, "Thanks."

"Thanks for what?" He asked, confused.

"Exactly." She said sadly, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek.

She grinned as she ran to the open door of the TARDIS. She was not passing up the chance this time. She entered the bigger on the inside blue box, and without looking back, Rose Tyler shut the doors to her old life with a resounding click.


End file.
